Watching Your Dog Age Is Hard
Barbara Dobbins, my friend and frequent contributor to WDJ,
once wrote a post
for this space that described how her senior Border Collie, Daisy, had earned...
Puppy Potty Training: Simple, But Not Easy
The litter of 10 pups that my good friend was fostering for
our local shelter at her home had a spay/neuter surgery date, and I...
Pet Food Shortages? Don’t Panic
I read an article the
other day about a pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, shutting
down due to hundreds of workers becoming infected...
Saving Animals While Keeping People Safe From COVID-19
Wow, the world has changed so much in such a short time. This occurs to me several times a day, but today’s biggest shock...
It’s Tick Season!
One minute, my husband and I were having a perfectly
ordinary conversation in the kitchen. In the next moment, I was ripping off my
sweatshirt, my...
Life With Dogs In The Age of The Coronavirus
Life as most of us know it is being severely disrupted by the restrictions and common-sense guidelines being put forth in nearly every community...
Mixed Results: Researching Your Dog’s DNA
It never fails: Every time I take my senior dog Otto into public, people ask what breed he is. And I have to smile...
Coronavirus, Your Dog, and You
From past work on articles about canine vaccination protocols, I was familiar with the word “coronavirus” when the stories about coronavirus disease 2019—better known...
Volunteering: When it’s Time to Get Back to Work
Anyone who has ever volunteered in animal rescue can relate: You vow to take a break. Maybe your circumstances have changed in a way...
The Strongest Reinforcements
Ask a dog trainer to tell you one of their biggest pet peeves about their training clients, and they will almost always mention the...
What You Should Do (and Not Do) If You Find a Lost Dog
If you are a dog lover and you spend any amount of time on Facebook or any of those community website/discussion groups such as...
Mind Your Cues
Hang around with enough dog owners, and inevitably you will hear someone say to their distracted or recalcitrant dog, “Sit! Sit! Sit! SIT!” I’m...
Latest Blog
Too Old to Adopt?
I’ve had a number of older owners book lessons with me lately—more than half a dozen individuals and couples in their 70s and even 80s, all wanting some training help with their new dogs or puppies.